Conference and Panels

Pacifica Institute aims to encourage scholarly and intellectual researches and discussions on peace building, social conflicts, dialogue, and education. Scholarly works lay the foundations for better communication and understanding. These conferences investigates the development and application of values, knowledge and skills that promote and reinforce beneficial and long-lasting intercultural relations at the individual, group, organization, and community levels. Some of the academic conferences

East and West Encounters: The Gulen (Hizmet) Movement
The conference was held in USC on Dec. 4-6, 2009, and sponsored by the University of Southern California’s Office of Religious Life, the International Education Center at Santa Monica College, the department of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University, the department of religious studies at Humboldt University and the department of religious studies at Whittier College.

Family Conference: Family in Transition
Pacifica Institute, Cal State University at Long Beach and Loyola Marymount together organized and hosted the Conference on the Family in Transition. The conference was mediated by CSULB’s own Religious Studies Professor Sophia Pandya.

The three principal speakers were Ken Canfield (Executive Director of the Boone Center for the Family at Pepperdine University), Father Eric Freed (Director of the Humboldt State University Newman Center), and Funda Turkmen (PhD candidate at Michigan State University).

Dialog of Civilizations: Santa Clara/ San Jose State University Forum
In contrast to a common belief in a Clash of Civilizations, Pacifica Institute is opening up a new era and redefining the concept with an understanding of Dialog of Civilizations. Towards this effort, Pacifica Institute organized a Forum on ‘Building Bridges Between Diverse Cultures and the case of the Hizmet (Gülen) Movement’, sponsored also by Santa Clara University, Department of Religious Studies at San Jose City College and Global Ministries University.